Page 31 of Love Sick

“Oh, I think—it’s just—an OB thing, you know? For the five of us, I mean.”

Her shoulders sag.

Hold firm. Don’t tell her you’ll hang another time. Don’t!

“I wish my class did stuff like that,” she says.

“A little harder when there are thirteen of you.”

She hums. “That’s true.”

I pull up to the curb by her house and slide out of my truck. She lets me open her door for her—something I always fret will be taken the wrong way.

Is it anti-feminist? I no longer know.

I half expect her to screech“I can open my own door, Julian!”but she only smiles and accepts my help to the ground.

On the porch, she unlocks and cracks the door before turning to me with alook.

Oh god…

“Do you—”

“Well, have a good night,” I say in my brightest tone.

She searches my face. “I will. You—you, too.”

She steps into me at the same time I raise an arm to shake her hand. My arm jerks back when my fingers connect with her stomach.

“No, it’s fine,” she says and enters my personal space.

This is so weird.

How do I tell her no without hurting her feelings?

She did nothing wrong. I’m simply an idiot.

She tips her face to kiss me. Four awkward seconds pass before my lips land on the corner of her mouth and my entire being cringes.

This isn’t right.

She isn’t right.

How I know this, I’m really not sure, but it’svisceral.

I have no idea what I want, but the fact is incontrovertible—

I don’t want this.

* * *

Later that night, I’m dozing on my couch with the game on mute when a frantic knock jolts me awake, splashing my hands with the beer I’d fallen asleep holding.

“Damn it.”

The knock grows louder. “Julian!”

I pause on my way to the kitchen for a towel.Grace?

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